Guess who is the good guy?
The Longest Night, also known as Dark Flowers, is a 1998 Hong Kong crime thriller directed by Johnnie To, starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai, who in a surprising twist, plays a corrupt cop who delights in abusing his power, who had to face a triad mobster (Lau Ching-wan) in a battle of wits.
A corrupt cop, Sam (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) is handling the negotiations between two Triad leaders who plan to join forces (while being the informant of one side, planning to scam over his superiors for his own benefits). But a suspicious bald man named Tony (Lau Ching-wan) repeatedly stalks Sam and attempt to disrupt his personal business. When Tony tries implicating Sam in a murder case, Sam and Tony prepares to confront each other in what is probably The Longest Night in their lives.
Features examples of:
- Affably Evil: Tony may be a mobster and Sam’s personal nemesis, but he’s also polite, smiles a lot, charming and rather charismatic.
- Assassins Are Always Betrayed: Right in the end of the movie, Sam gets offed by the triad syndicate he’s an informer for, in a You Have Outlived Your Usefulness moment.
- Bald of Evil: Tony, the triad informant and mob leader. And in the end of the film, Sam is revealed to have shaved his head as well.
- Boom, Headshot!: Sam.
- Bulletproof Vest: This is what saves Sam when a group of mobsters tries to betray him, whereupon he draws his gun and take out the mobsters in a shootout. But it doesn’t save him from the ending betrayal, because in that scene he gets shot behind the head.
- Cool Shades: Sam and Tony, but they only wear these in daytime or when outdoors.
- Corrupt Cop: Sam, played by Tony Leung in his most sadistic mode.
- Darkened Building Shootout: The final 1-vs-1 shootout between Sam and Tony.
- Driver Faces Passenger: This happens when Tony is being intimidated by a mobster while in a moving car. Who tells Tony to Just Keep Driving.
- Evil Versus Evil: Sam, a corrupt cop and ruthless informant, against Tony, a mobster and killer.
- Extremely Short Timespan: True to its title, the confrontation between Sam and Tony, the main plot of the film, takes place over the course of one night.
- Face Framed in Shadow: Tony and Sam in several scenes, to showcase their sinister allegiances.
- Fingore:
- An interrogation scene in a bar had Sam ordering two fellow thugs to restrain an informant, then brutally crippling the informant by smashing his fingers repeatedly with a bottle. And rub it into the crippled man’s face by challenging him to pick up a gun with his now useless hands.
- Later on, Sam tortures another informant by having his hand restrained to a clamp, and driving pointed iron rods underneath his fingernails.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: Sam, in the end of the movie, where he survived his ultimate confrontation with Tony ( Tony didn’t), the rival triads’ boss is dead, there are zero witness and evidence of his corruption activities and he is close to getting away scot-free for the crimes he committed. Then he gets shot in the head by his own benefactor. Roll credits.
- Mexican Standoff: The first mano-on-man faceoff between Tony and Sam, where Tony is revealed to have a concealed pistol, and both men draw guns on each other. But in the end neither pulls the trigger, and their confrontation is postponed for the climax.
- Oddball in the Series: Evil Tony Leung? Really?
- While Tony Leung did portray various antagonist roles in the 90s, his roles are either Anti-Hero, Noble Demon or played as parody. The Longest Night is the first and only role in the 90s where Leung is a flat-out sadistic villian.
- Off with His Head!: Boss Yong, a triad leader, is killed by Tony with his head removed and stored in a duffel bag. In Sam’s locker.
- Later in the final showdown, a sliding glass panel removes Tony’s head.
- Outrun the Fireball: A confrontation between Tony and Sam in a nightclub kitchen had Tony igniting the stoves, causing a huge fire instantly that Sam had to leap away from.
- Police Brutality: Sam, who takes delight in Cold-Blooded Torture during his various Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique moments.
- Surprise Car Crash: While Tony is being intimidated by another mobster in the same car as him and pointing a gun at Tony’s face, Tony instead stalls for time by having a long-winded conversation with his captor to deliberately invoke this trope. Sure enough, the car crashes into another vehicle coming from another junction, but being Genre Savvy Tony already had his seatbelts on.
- Would Hit a Girl: Sam, who beats the snot out of Fong after she tries to betray him, in one of his many Police Brutality moments. Including threatening to shove a pencil into her eye.
